Not Afraid
by SWChika
Summary: <html><head></head>A Jolex one shot post 11x02. Just how I would have liked to see them handle Alex getting fired from Lebackes' practice. Rated T for slight language and mild sexual innuendo.</html>


**Author's Notes:** Okay I know this is not gonna happen, but this is what I would like to see for Jolex post 11x02.

For those of you waiting on But I Never Left You, I swear I haven't abandoned it. I just want to get Chapter 20 in a better place before posting 19 in case I need to revise it.

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><p>Jo wearily climbed the stairs mentally preparing herself to continue the fight with Alex that had started at the hospital. After informing her that he had been fired by Lebackes, he had stalked off unwilling to speak about the situation anymore. She had given him the space she knew he needed before trying to call, but each attempt had gone straight to voicemail. She had searched for him at the hospital and at Joe's before having a beer in an attempt to calm herself and build up courage to come home.<p>

She hesitantly entered the bedroom meeting his eyes as he glanced up at her with a sarcastic smile, "Well there she is, my beautiful girlfriend and her unbelievably huge mouth. I was wondering when you were going to work up the guts to come home."

"Alex..."

"Are you about to try to blame new chick for this again? Cause if you are then I need to take a walk."

Jo crossed her arms over her chest in defiance, "I never blamed Pierce. I told you it was my fault from the beginning."

Alex sighed and looked back at the notebook in his lap, "Whatever."

Jo's shoulders slumped in defeat at the resignation in his voice. She hesitated briefly before asking, "What are you working on?"

Alex rubbed his face in frustration, "Trying to figure out a budget for the next month." He glanced up at her and gave a self-depreciating smirk, "I'm not completely worthless."

Jo quickly charged at him, "What the crap are you talking about?" She then slowly sat down on the bed, facing him, a hint of hurt tinging her voice, "What did Butthole say to you?"

Alex shook his head and looked back at the papers, "It doesn't matter." He then glanced back up with forced levity, "Hey, how much do you love Ramen noodles?"

"So much that I would rather get arrested attempting to steal food and eat jailhouse garbage for a month," she deadpanned. She readjusted to sit beside him, "We are _not_ living off Ramen, let me see what you've got."

Alex handed over his notes, "It's that or living in the car."

Jo flashed a smile, "You make it sound so bad. Your car has plenty of room for both of us, it'd be pretty homey."

Alex turned serious, "That's not funny."

Jo snuggled up to him, "Alex, it's gonna be fine, the hospital will absolutely take you back. I'm sure Robbins is already working on it. And even if they don't make an offer, you're a rock star, you won't be out of work for long."

She felt his fingers skim against her upper arm as he held her closer, "I'm glad you're so confident."

"I'm not afraid, I have faith in you. Now, how far did you get?"

"Not very. You know this isn't my strong point."

Jo winked at him, "Meaning you were waiting on me to come home do it."

"Well yeah."

Jo kissed his cheek as she sat up to work, "You're cute. Let's just start with prioritizing the biggest needs. We should first send money to your family."

Alex widened his eyes, "First?"

Jo tapped the pencil on the paper, "Well yeah. They have more needs than we do. Plus you don't want any of them to notice the amount is different or late and have them get anxious for no reason." She looked over at Alex's shocked face, "What?"

Alex shook his head quickly, "Nothing."

Jo narrowed her eyes, studying him, "Okaaay. Next we need to do the house note. Don't want to ruin your credit by missing a payment. You've been doing more than the minimum on your student loans and car so we can skip a month or just send less than usual. We definitely need to keep the water and power on, but we can shower more at the hospital to save on that."

"_You_ can shower there more often. Pretty sure I no longer have showering privileges."

Jo winced slightly, "Oh yeah. Sorry." she looked up at him apologetically before giving a tight lipped smile and turning back to the paper, "We definitely turn off the cable and Netflix. It's not like we use them that much anyway."

Alex sat up straighter, "Oh so I get to sit here and be bored all day while you have fun at work?" He then softly kissed the juncture of her neck and shoulder while mumbling, "Doesn't seem fair."

Jo twitched as desire ran through her and his stubble tickled her, "I have DVDs you can watch." She made a few quick calculations as he rubbed her shoulders, "I think that pretty much covers it. We can do partial payments on the water, garbage, and power since they won't cut off service for a first partial payment. Of course, we won't have to worry about that this month. We should be able to pay all of this and if not, we'll just get some money out of my savings."

Alex straightened up from his position at her neck, "Woah, no. We are not going into your savings. No way."

Jo turned slightly, "Why not?" At Alex's hesitation she rolled her eyes, "Oh for crying out loud Alex, stop being such a male chauvinist."

Alex gave a defensive shrug, "I'm not. I just don't believe that you should be carrying all the weight around here." At Jo's pointed look, he rolled his eyes, "Yeah okay, that sounded chauvinist. But seriously Jo, it's not fair that you take money out of savings when you've worked so hard for it. Especially when it's only being talked about because I went and got myself fired."

"Which we already established was my fault. Come on Alex, this is what couples do."

Alex gave a slow nod and looked down, "Well not if I can do anything about it. I've already talked to Joe about picking up some work at the bar so that will help." He looked up to meet Jo's look of disbelief, "What? I've done it before when I needed extra cash. No big deal."

Jo waved him away, "You are too talented for that nonsense."

"Working hard to keep your head above water is not nonsense, and you know that," Alex stated matter-of-factly.

Jo furrowed her brow at him, "What are you talking about?"

Alex took the notebook from her and waved it in the air before tossing it to the bedside table, "You came up with these solutions mighty fast. How long have you been thinking about this?"

Jo offered a slight shrug, "People who have been homeless before spend a lot of time thinking about how not to end up homeless again. No biggie."

Alex nodded as he leaned back against the headboard, "You never did tell me why you blabbed about all this board/shares thing to someone you don't even know."

Jo turned to him and smiled, "It's not like it was some huge guarded secret. Half the hospital already knew. Plus I had to jump on the chance to brag on you."

Alex gave a questioning look, "What?"

Jo sighed, "Okay make your silly girl jokes, but I never get to talk about you to people that don't already know you. I never get to be all braggy and 'hey that's _my_ boyfriend' or 'guess what my boyfriend did.' You know what I'm talking about? I never get to show you off so to speak so I went a little overboard when I got a chance." She looked over at his perplexed face and rolled her eyes, "Go ahead and laugh about how I..."

She was cut off by him kissing her, quickly deepening it and moving on top of her, pushing her into the mattress. She reached up to run her fingers through his hair as he ran his hands up and down her sides. They pulled back breathless and stared at each other for a moment before he spoke, "You like to brag on me?"

Jo let out a soft giggle, "Yes silly. Of course that was before you were unceremoniously given a pink slip."

He smirked at her before bending down to give her a soft kiss that quickly grew deeper. He shifted to lie between her legs as she relaxed in his embrace. She ran her fingers under the waistband of his sweats before grabbing the hem of his shirt to pull it over his head. He smiled at her impatience when he wouldn't move his arms fast enough, before she threw the offending shirt across the room.

He raised up slightly to look at her before deciding to slowly unbutton her top instead of pulling it over her head. As he focused excessively on each button his fingers lightly teased her skin, setting her on fire further. She began to whimper at his temptations before working the buttons herself. Alex laughed at her frustration before kissing her deeply as he worked the buttons on her jeans. Jo moaned and cursed under her breath at the sound of his cell phone.

Alex reached over and silenced the offending device without looking at it and murmured, "Best thing about not having a boss."

Jo laughed and put her hands on his cheeks to guide him back to her. Just as their kiss became heated again, Jo heard banging downstairs. She tried to break away from Alex, but he remained on top of her and moved to kiss her neck and chest, "Alex?" He hummed in acknowledgement, the vibrations causing her breath to catch. She took a deep breath and tried to get his attention again, "Alex, Grey is..."

At this Alex stopped and hung his head on her chest, "Come on Jo, it's been several days. I talked to her about it, she's not coming in here."

Jo gave a slight laugh, "Oh I know because she's locked outside."

Alex raised his head and smirked at her, "You changed the locks?"

Jo shrugged playfully, "It was her suggestion..."

Alex gave a half grin as he leaned back in to kiss her, growling once again as the banging became louder and his cell began to ring again. He collapsed on her chest and mumbled, "Can anything go right today?"

Jo placed soft kisses on his hairline and scratched the back of his head comfortingly as she reached for his phone to tap out a quick message to Meredith. "At least you can sleep in tomorrow." At Alex's shocked look she winced, "Too soon?"

Alex rolled his eyes, "Ya think?" He then hugged her close once more and placed one last kiss on her chest before getting up with a growl. "I'll see you in the morning."

Jo turned on to her side and propped herself up on her arm, "Wake me up when you come back. I want to finish this."

Alex smirked as he bent over to retrieve his shirt, "Wait, where's my key to the house?"

Jo gave a dazzling smile, "I already replaced the old one on your key chain. Did it yesterday."

Alex gave a small chuckle as he bent back down to kiss her quickly, "Smooth moves, Dr. Willis. Very smooth moves."


End file.
